Eritrean Immigrant Held on Rape, Robbery of Disabled TA Woman

An Eritrean suspect is being held in connection with a brutal attack on a disabled woman in Tel Aviv. It's not the first time either

By Chana Ya'ar

First Publish: 7/17/2013, 12:18 PM

Illustration: police car

Flash 90

Cleared for publication: A court allowed media Wednesday to publish limited details about an Eritrean suspect being held in connection with a brutal attack on a disabled woman in Tel Aviv.

The woman, whose identity and specific location were withheld from publication, was raped by a man wielding a knife, and then robbed.

The attack took place inside her home.

Police said the suspect, an Eritrean male, was arrested last weekend and is being held pending arraignment before a judge on Thursday.

Further details about the case are under a gag order from the court.

Several such cases have occurred in recent months, with most held under gag order for a period of time. Often, when details emerged, residents held mass protests to demand the ejection of African illegals from their neighbourhood.

A Sudanese man was arrested earlier this month in connection with the rape of a 17-year-old female tourist in a public bathroom at Banana Beach in Tel Aviv.

In south Tel Aviv’s Yad Eliyahu neighbourhood, a 22-year-old Sudanese immigrant broke into a home, stabbed a woman and sexually assaulted her eight-year-old daughter before the child’s father managed to fight off and then capture the attacker.

In January, a drunken 19-year-old Eritrean man was arrested for raping and beating an 83-year-old woman repeatedly for nearly three hours in the courtyard of her apartment building near the central bus station on a Friday afternoon.

Tel Aviv Mayor Run Huldai told reporters after one of the incidents, “The burden of the infiltrators has fallen on the residents of south Tel Aviv. The are the ones who suffer and their distress is understandable. They are forced to carry the absorption of large numbers of migrants alone. We must return the feeling of security to the residents of south Tel Aviv.”

Activists and many of the predominantly working-class residents of southern Tel Aviv have long accused liberal politicians and campaigners of double-standards on the subject of illegal African immigrants, contending that the largely sympathetic agenda towards what they terms as "infiltrators" by the political left is being executed at their expense. Community members have noted that the more affluent northern neighbourhoods are conspicuously empty of African immigrants, despite its more "liberal" constituency.